


Repair

by nick_i_kenicki



Category: Life Is Strange 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Conversations, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:20:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23565958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nick_i_kenicki/pseuds/nick_i_kenicki
Summary: In Humboldt, Sean reminices on his old life while Finn goes quiet. They can't fix things but they can repair them.
Relationships: Sean Diaz & Finn, Sean Diaz/Finn
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47





	Repair

**Author's Note:**

> Fist fic in awhile. Not beta read.

Finn wasn't the first, but he was certainly the biggest crush Sean had ever had and the proximity only made it worse. The first crush Sean had ever gotten on a boy was a hint, an echo of attraction. It was like his feelings belonged to a neighbor or an unceremonious passerby. The guys moved on and the feelings did too. They were easy to squash out when they weren't around.

People came in and out of Sean's life without much fuss. That was what it meant to be a teenager. Feelings were— short-lived, to say the least. A guy in his Algebra 2 class, a girl on the swimming team, a random hall monitor, really anyone who happened to peak his momentary fancy. It was all practice for Jenn anyways. At least, Sean thought.

Before they left home, life felt like a miniature world inside a snow globe. Tiny and predictable. Fragile. 

Sean didn't realize just how fragile his world was until it all came crashing in. The shattered pieces of his old life were barely recognizable and they were so badly broken, that there was no point in even trying to put them back together. 

There were times when Sean imagined waking up in his old bed. Getting dressed in his old room and running out into the kitchen to see his Dad working the stove for breakfast. He imagined hugging his Dad tight and erasing the hell they'd been living. A world where the shooting and Daniel's powers were distant nightmares. Every terror that came with the, gone. Life as it was.

He'd play out the party in his head. How his first kiss with Jenn would have gone. It was hard not to mourn the potential, but Finn made it a little easier to manage.

Sean felt compelled to Finn like a moth to a flame. He knew if he got too close, he'd be burned, but somehow the fire didn't seem so bad. The heat didn't scare him.

When they were together, Sean was left breathless, the same as when he ran. Everything shallow, in his head and reaching, racing, to feel real. There was nowhere to go to run away from that either, Sean knew what he was feeling was unavoidable. He wanted to tell Finn just how alive he made him feel.

That is, until Finn went quiet.

The day started like usual, with spotty sunbeams filtering through their canvas tents which served as lazy Saturday alarms. Sean stirred and curled over to snuggle close to Daniel. Daniel, despite all his complaining about the lack of space, curled into Sean's warmth. They stayed like that till the nag of hunger pulled Sean to get up.

He unzipped the flap to find that the camp was eerily quiet. Penny and Jacob were having a quiet conversation near the perimeter of their site while the others worked on their chores. Finn was nowhere to be seen and the lack of his voice was concerning. He wasn't quiet. Finn didn't do quiet. He was always humming to himself or joking with the others while he did whatever he did.

Sean did a once over then stumbled out of his tent. It reminded Sean of a highschool punishment, like they had to complete the rest of their free period in silence before the fun could start back up. Sean spotted Cassidy. She was bagging some of her leftover trash. Even though it was well into the day, she still looked drowsy. Or a little perturbed.

"Hey, uh good morning," Sean said upon approach. His voice cracked from the heaviness of sleep. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Can I ask what's going on? Did something happen?"

Cassidy smiled. "Hey Diaz." She blinked like she remembered something and the smile fell. "Yeah, everything's good here. Just cleaning up so Hans doesn't have a shit fit." She shrugged and threw another beer can in the bag for good measure.

Sean raised an eyebrow. She was obviously avoiding the question.

Cassidy didn't meet his eyes. Before he could ask another question though, Finn wandered in from out of the woods. He didn't put on his usual show of kissing the closest person on the head while yelling " _ Honey! I'm home!"  _ He just stood there and took it all in. It was unprecedented.

When Finn drifted back to his tent without so much as a word, Cassidy leaned in close. She whispered, "Something's wrong with him. You haven't been here for long so you don't know, but he gets this way every so often. It's like he can't be reached."

"What are you talking about?" Sean pressed her.

Cassidy just shook her head. "Look, I'm close to him. We're basically family, but I don't know everything. If you wanna know about Big Daddy you gotta ask Big Mama," she said with a little nod toward Hannah. 

Before she could elaborate on that any more, Penny gestured for her to come over. Cassidy mouthed an apology to Sean and went to join their little circle across camp.

Hannah? The Big Mama? Sean guessed it did make sense. Finn didn't do anything without getting Hannah's opinion first. He valued her in a way that was rare, even for old married couples. She was also the only one that took their work seriously. Honestly, Hannah was objectively the real adult. Especially concerning matters of Finn. 

Sean watched her crawl into Finn's tent with a bag of chips and a joint, proving his point. She didn't come out again till late afternoon. 

Sean and Daniel had finished up some of their chores by then. They sat around the table of their makeshift kitchen to play a quick game of Uno. Daniel was winning since he had years of training with Dad and Sean pretended not to miss those days as a family too much. The others laughed and carried on. Despite the mood earlier, the punks actually seemed happy. 

That was, before the zip of Finn's tent opening called everyone's attention. Hannah crawled out then started approaching the table. When Penny made eye contact with her, a dull quiet fell over the table. It was almost scary, how much she set the tone without a word. When Hannah had something to say, the others held their breaths and waited.

Hannah curled a finger at Sean to gesture him over. Sean swallowed hard and went to her with the same reluctance as a child being sent to the principal's office. Even though he knew it had to be about Finn, he couldn't help but feel like he had done something wrong.

Hannah didn't waste time on small talk. She just folded her arms and said, "He wants to see you."

Sean's eyes went wide. "Me? Wait, what? Why?"

Hannah clicked her tongue, obviously over the whole thing already. "I don't know." She left it at that.

When Sean crawled into the tiny tent, he took in everything like it was the first time he had seen it. Instead of the sparse, organized mess Finn was known for, the entire floor was covered with trash. Junk food wrappers, half eaten snacks and bottles filled with a liquid Sean suspected was pee. It was a new level, even for the drifters.

However, when Finn wiggled out of his blanket to see Sean, it was like he was brand new. He looked delicate in a way that didn't quite fit his personality. As fragile as their life back in the city. He was shirtless too, soaked from the sweat of staying in a stuffy tent all day. Sean traced the tattoos with his eyes.

Finn's white limbs were all marked up with doodles and misspelled words like he was a desk in the back of a middle school study hall. The letters on his knuckles stuck out, especially the last 'E' on his right hand. It trailed off a little, like he had done it himself and struggled with the angle. His other tattoos rang familiar to the other drifters.

On his left hand, in small handwriting 'Piza' was splayed across his knuckles. Concise in its misspelling, true to Cassidy. The line down his chin was an homage to Penny while the triangles peppering his cheekbones matched Hannah's. He said the crosshatches on his arms were a play on the Christian cross for Jake, but Sean was skeptical. He and Finn laughed about it once before. He missed that laugh.

"Hey dude, how are you?" Sean tried. It didn't seem right to talk to Finn so casually. Sean wanted to grab him up and hold him tight until he spoke. Somehow he knew that wouldn't work anywhere else but his fantasies and changed the subject. "Do you want some food?"

"Not hungry," Finn's voice floated out from under his duvet.

Sean inched a little closer. He was sitting on his knees, all folded up like a lego man, trying his best to be small without disappearing into himself.

Suddenly Sean was eleven again. He was sitting under a pillow fort, trying to teach Daniel some Spanish. The trill of their Dad's machinery working in the garage punctuated each lesson. Sean only attempted to teach him a few key phrases since they were both a little lacking in the teaching and learning aspect. Frustrated teacher and bored student. It was among the many why reasons Daniel only knew one or two word sentences in Spanish.

He felt the same with Finn. Coaxing an unwilling participant into proving that Sean was doing something right. That his time trying wasn't worthless.

No affirmations came though. All Sean got was another one-word answer. "Tired."

Sean nodded, even though he wasn't sure if Finn could even see him and said. "I'll let you rest then."

When Sean exited the tent, he saw Hannah had moved. She was sitting across the camp on a log. She was staring into a bonfire the others had made. Sean came and sat next to her.

"He gets in these moods, y'know. Won't talk to anybody or eat or whatever the fuck else he needs to do to get through the day," Hannah explained without looking up. When Sean looked over at her, he saw the real fear behind her cool demeanor. That looming worry that Finn could become the next Jinx. Have a break and wander off into the woods, gone forever.

Sean swallowed his own anxiety and watched the fire. "Does he have a diagnosis? Something we can work with?" He asked. All he needed was a name, he thought. Something he could look up when they went to a library again. Something he could figure out how to help.

At Sean's question, Hannah laughed. A bitter, biting chuckle. "I don't know what kind of life you lived before Sean, but it's obvious you still don't know how it works around here." She cast a look back at Finn's silent tent. "No shrink would take a homeless punk, fresh out of juvie. They're not paid enough to sort through all his shit."

The realization hit Sean all at once, all over again, that he and Daniel had access to things the others hadn't. The yearly checkups and counselor talks were unique to their childhoods. The others just did what they could to survive almost all of their lives.

Hannah finally looked over at Sean. Her dark eyes burned a hole into him. "Don't try to fix him. Years of trauma aren't going to just disappear overnight. Just listen to him. He obviously trusts you to relate to him in a way I can't." She looked back down at the red embers. "You got this Sean."

. . .

Finn didn't cry, at least not in front of anybody. Sometimes Sean wondered if he even knew how to anymore. He knew Finn was addicted to positivity. Or at least he used to be.

"I didn't cry when my Ma died," Finn finally admitted, after a week of attempted talks in that cramped little tent. It felt like the first time he strung together an actual coherent sentence in forever. "I was about eleven and she had been sick on and off since before I was born." He looked off, somewhere faraway. Maybe back at himself as a child.

"I think my mom was worse than my dad," Finn said in a small voice, devoid of any humor. It was unusual because whenever he spoke about his parents, it was under the guise of a joke. Sean knew it well. Finn's nightly quips about how the betrayal in  _ The Lion King _ had nothing on his father or how his mother's faith kept her rampant neglect down to a nice Godly minimum. The kind of thing they decided not to think too hard about. The kind of pain they decided to ease with laughter.

Sean shuffled closer, ready to listen. He was afraid if he spoke, it would break whatever spell was compelling Finn to open up.

"Since she was so sick, when they conceived me, my parents thought I was their little miracle baby. She raised hell if my brother's even looked at me wrong," Finn reminisced. He smiled at the memory and Sean couldn't help but smile too.

"That sounds about right. I think most parents spoil their youngest," Sean added while nodding. He tried not to think about Karen and Daniel's relationship, but instead, Daniel and their father's. They were partners in crime, best friends, the pair people thought about when familial soulmates were mentioned.

Finn hummed like he agreed, but his face fell the longer he thought. "That's true. That is true Sean."

"— But?"

"But . . . that all changed when they found out about me."

"About you?"

Finn glanced at Sean. There were a million words that look. Stories he wanted to tell, just beyond the surface of those clear eyes. Rather than voice any of them in detail though, Finn just smirked. That rueful little smile.

"Well let's just say, white trash hillbillies aren't exactly the most accepting people." He dragged his hand up his own arm. Sean watched Finn trace his fingers along pale white scars. Some were scribbled out by the tattoos and others were so old, they were almost gone. Sean always assumed they were from trimming.

The gloom spread through the tent like a heavy fog. The truth of the matter, that people like the gutter punks. People who lived in places like their little camp were often there for the same reason. Parents who didn't care, caretakers who didn't want to, professionals who exploited their labor. It was all the same.

Sean could only hope that if his Dad knew how he was. How he truly was. That he wouldn't have cared. He was an old school religious guy, but he was full of love. Sean could only hold on to the echoes of love his Dad gave him and hope some would rub off on Daniel.

"I'm sorry–" Sean tried. Finn shushed him and started shifting. For the first time since Sean came to talk to him, Finn sat all the way up. He looked so thin but suddenly a little more whole. Solid enough to touch.

Despite Sean's earlier apprehension, he reached out for Finn. Finn didn't make much of an expression, but he crawled over to fall into the embrace.

"Kids like us are absolutely fucked up," Finn muttered. His breath was hot against Sean's skin. Another sign that he was alive.

Sean revelled in the warmth. "Absolutely."

They stayed like that and time creeped on. Sean didn't want to let go. He thought back to his old life again. How little Daniel looked back then. How big his Dad smiled. He wished he held on to them tighter.

That was all he could do now though. Hold Finn and try not to let his mind wander too far. His Dad taught him that there was no fixing. Nothing would ever be exactly as it was before it got broken, but almost everything could be repaired. Worked on little by little until it was running again.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment if you'd liked anything.


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